


The Exit

by MildredMost



Category: The Entrance - Gerald Durrell
Genre: Books, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fix-It, Horror, Internalized Homophobia, Libraries, M/M, Magic, Mirrors, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 01:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14822415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/pseuds/MildredMost
Summary: I have all night lying ahead of me and, as I know I cannot sleep - in spite of my resolve - I thought I would try to write down in detail the thing that has just happened to me. I am afraid that setting it down like this will not make it any the more believable, but it will pass the time until dawn comes.





	The Exit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PositivelyVexed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PositivelyVexed/gifts).



**Peter**

 

Peter Letting, with a blizzard rattling his window and a demon waiting to devour him, sat in the terror that is one last candle and tried to write.

_15 February, 1901. Chateau de Teildras Villeray_

_I have all night lying ahead of me and, as I know I cannot sleep - in spite of my resolve - I thought I would try to write down in detail the thing that has just happened to me. I am afraid that setting it down like this will not make it any the more believable, but it will pass the time until dawn comes._

He stalled there, hands shaking. He had to think. Experiencing it was one thing, but to set it down in writing...well, it sounded like madness, nothing else. Should he die (and Peter was now in little doubt that he would), was this the legacy he wished to leave? Insane and drunk, they would say. A suicide, sent into hysteria by isolation like an arctic explorer. Or worse, reading between the lines - a lonely man, obsessed with another.

At the same time, what did all that matter? He had to leave something. A warning.

Peter blotted his pen carefully, willed his hand steady, and began again.

_Firstly I must explain a little about myself and my relationship with Gideon de Teildras Villeray so that the reader (if there ever is one) will understand how I came to be in the depths of France in mid-winter. I am an antiquarian bookseller, and..._

He stopped, interrupted by a sound he couldn’t quite place at first. Then he realised it was echoing up from the hall below. Someone was knocking at the front door of the Chateau. The dog at his feet, Agrippa, had also raised his head, growling deep in his belly. Everything had seemed so normal two days ago. He had merely to organise a library, and care for a cat, a dog and a cantankerous old parrot.

The storm raised itself to a shriek. It was dark as pitch out there and freezing. Nothing human, surely, could be banging to get in.

“Shh,” Peter said aloud to the dog who was pawing at his knee. “We won’t answer.”

As if he had been heard, the frantic knocking ceased. Peter listened for a moment, then bent his head to his writing again.

_“Gideon came to me and employed my services to catalogue his personal library, and from our very first meeting we seemed to form a fast friendship. He was a compelling character, and I was flattered at his interest in me. Perhaps I should have questioned this more. But_

~~_The dark lustre of his eyes_ ~~   
~~_His voice was husky, lilting and charming_ ~~   
~~_Wide, mischievous smile with his white even teeth…”_ ~~

Peter scratched through all these descriptions of the Marquis vehemently. How to explain how Gideon had captivated him without giving himself away entirely? It seemed impossible.

_“It must have seemed an unlikely friendship - I am a solitary creature by nature and Gideon is vivacious and volatile. But as day followed day, I grew fonder and fonder of him. And over the next four years I grew to know Gideon well. He perhaps knew me better than any of my acquaintances…”_

Peter’s mouth twisted wryly at ‘acquaintance’, but he could not quite bring himself to expose his heart entirely. Enough that he was to die alone, without the world knowing his folly and unnatural nature. Or worse, that Gideon would read these words and sneer. He pressed on.

_...a week ago he came to me straight from a French prison and in huge distress, having been falsely accused of murdering his Uncle. He had spoken very little about this Uncle before, only telling me that he had become his ward at a young age and had lived in terror and hatred of him. And his request for help was so simple, I didn’t see any reason to refuse. It was a task I’d done a hundred times - to merely catalogue his Uncle’s library. It could not have seemed more innocent. I didn’t think twice about staying here alone to do it; Gideon’s upset at the idea of being in the home he had hated appeared entirely genuine…_

Gideon had wrenched his heart that night. Emaciated, exhausted and on the point of collapse, he had sought refuge at Peter’s London townhouse. Gideon could not have known what that had meant to him, that Peter and his home were his first port of call. Peter almost smiled remembering that evening - Gideon teasing him for fussing over him, calling him an English nanny and assuring him he was quite alright. Then moments later he had suffered a nervous collapse. Peter would have promised him anything that night to chase the look of despair from his friend’s face.

Funny to think that it must all have been calculated. It had felt so real.

The noise at the door began again, but this time Peter could hear the door vibrating with great, shuddering thuds, as though it was being hit with a battering ram.

Agrippa growled more loudly.

“Not yet,” Peter said, more to himself, snatching up the pen again. Time was running out. Forgetting to blot this time, he wrote frantically, ink drops staining the page.

_And now I know what frightens him and it is not bad memories of a cruel Uncle. There is a Horror, a creature within the mirrors here, which hunts. It feeds on any life reflected in the mirror, and it grows stronger, bolder. It has fed on me. I cannot see a way to stop it, but I am determined to try._

Peter paused. Perhaps this was enough. But a surge of emotion pushed him to write more.

_But I cannot reconcile the man I knew with the person who lured me here and left me alone. And he knows, he MUST know what my fate will be. Why me? I cannot begin to work it out. Though I’ll survive it if I can._

There was a resounding crash against the front door and a sound of splintering and Agrippa leapt up in a frenzy of barking. Peter stood too, snatching up the candelabra which held his solitary candle.

Before letting himself think, he pushed open the bedroom door into the hallway.

It was freezing out there, his breath coming in quick puffs of white lit by his guttering candle. God above, let it last the journey. There were more in the kitchen he knew, but his terror after confronting the creature last night had made it impossible to leave his room. He lifted a hand to protect the flame from draughts and walked slowly.

There were no mirrors here, only thick ugly wallpaper which had begun to moulder in the damp of unoccupancy. Agrippa clung closely to his ankles as he approached the head of the great staircase.

The noise at the door had stopped again.

Peter hesitated. The entrance to the Chateau was on the floor below him. To his left was the Long Gallery which housed the library. And of course the blue salon where the creature stalked in the mirror.

There was a creak from overhead, and Peter jumped as Agrippa let out a howl and bolted into the darkness. His freezing fingers fumbled the candelabra and he dropped it entirely, the candle going out, leaving him in utter darkness.

He was instantly lost. He didn’t know the layout of the Chateau nearly well enough, and his panic was blocking his ability to think. He began to feel his way along the wall. Please God let his hand only touch wallpaper and wood, not the ragged edge of a broken mirror which mean he had overshot the staircase and strayed into the Gallery itself.

The noise at the door began again, a rhythmic thud that seemed to echo the terrified thumping of his own heart. He could hear the lock rattling now, as though the blows were being directed at it. They would still have to break through the immense deadbolts. He still had time.

A giggle echoed along the hall. Peter’s stomach lurched. Whatever it was laughed again, louder, and then began to scream.

Peter lost his head entirely and broke into a run. Too late he realised the screaming was only the damned parrot, left alone upstairs and wanting company and probably food. Of all the stupid, bloody...

His foot caught on a rug and he tumbled headfirst into darkness, rolling over and over down the wide staircase to the entrance hall below. He must have screamed. He lay there for a moment, his lip bleeding hot onto his chin.

The door exploded into a frenzy of short sharp raps.

"Peter! My dear friend - do let me in!"

Peter hauled himself to his feet at the sound of the voice of the charming, handsome and irresistable Count de Teildras Villeray.

His throat seized. Partly with relief that these noises were entirely human, and partly with despair that this was how he would meet his end, at the hands of this man. Could he fight Gideon? Did Gideon control the beast that hunted him?

“Peter!”

"Go away!" Peter burst out.

“Oh thank God,” he heard Gideon say. He sounded close to tears and Peter was too exhausted to try to understand why. He swiped at his bleeding mouth with his sleeve. Light spilled beneath the crack at the bottom of the door.

"Please, Peter," Gideon said. "I beg you. I have things to tell you."

Peter stood, staring at the door, breathing hard.

" _Peter_ ," Gideon said again, and Peter's throat tightened at the despair in Gideon's voice. It didn't sound like an act. But what about Gideon had not been an act? He didn't know any more.

Taking the final two steps to the great front door, he slid the bolts across and turned the handle. The door swung inwards.

And there was Gideon, tumbling through the door, his hat and dark curls white with snow. He held a lantern in one hand and a broken gargoyle in the other. Dropping it, he swept off his hat and raised his eyes to Peter’s.

Peter stared at the man who had befriended him four years ago. Who had flattered him, charmed him, teased him; meant more to him than anyone had ever meant. The person who had made him realise the happiness of friendship. The man who had made him yearn for things he thought he had subdued long ago; had made him wonder if he could possibly yearn too.

...Who had made an utter fool of Peter and betrayed him in every way possible. Had cast him aside with the most callous, careless cruelty. And yet there he stood, with his darkly beautiful eyes in his handsome, aristocratic face, looking at Peter as affectionately as he ever had.

Peter ought to beat him within an inch of his life.

But he only stared back, unable to betray any more feeling than he had already.

 

**xxxx  
**

**Gideon**

 

He had known in his heart - what was left of it - that Peter would answer the door. And his heart - what was left of it - leapt with joy when the bolts scraped back and the door groaned open, and what stood there was not horror, but his own dear Peter.

His limbs too frozen to move properly, he half stumbled through the door. Peter watched him but did not reach out to steady him as he would have done in the past.

Gideon's eyes flicked to the mirror just to the left of the door. Peter's eyes went round with fright and Gideon picked up the stone gargoyle against and smashed the mirror to pieces.

The glass tinkled to the floor as the two men stared at each other.

"Is every mirror a danger?" Peter said, swallowing.

"Every one," Gideon said. They looked at each other for a long moment, Peter’s chest heaving. Even as they stood there, he could not help but notice that Peter’s hair was all on end, as it always was when he’d been thinking hard about something. Gideon could not count the number of times he had affectionately watched Peter absently running his fingers through it. Sometimes whole minutes would pass before Peter would realise that his grooming was less than perfect, and would put down the book he was holding (for he was always holding a book) to reach up with his strong, sensitive fingers and coax it into place.

But he had no right to those memories just now.

"Did you always intend to leave me here?" Peter said at last, and Gideon was brought sickeningly back to the present.

"Never," he said. " _Never._ "

“But you knew,” Peter said, and Gideon could see his throat working as he strove to contain himself. “Didn’t you? What would happen to me.”

Gideon hesitated, then nodded. He closed his eyes briefly at Peter’s expression of pure disgust.

"You left me here to die!" Peter said. And as though he couldn't bear to look at Gideon a moment longer, he turned sharply and walked away.

"I came back," said Gideon softly to his retreating back.

 

**xxxx**

**Peter**

 

Peter froze as he realised he had no source of light.

He had wanted to get away from Gideon, to express his absolute revulsion at his actions. But he was trapped by his terror of the dark.

“Where is it?” Gideon whispered. “Where did you last see it?”

“Upstairs in the blue salon,” Peter managed. Between his terrified dash, his fall down the stairs and his shock at seeing Gideon, he was shaking all over.

“Here.” Gideon’s hand was on his arm, and he held the lantern up for them both. Peter wished he wasn’t shaking so hard.

“Perhaps we should get to a fire,” Gideon said, taking a firmer grip of his arm.

“My bedroom,” Peter said shortly. He felt helpless, swept along by Gideon as always. And, though he hated it, relieved that there was someone else here now, to share the burden of the horror he was trapped in. It could not make things worse, he supposed, if he was killed in a warm familiar room, rather than a freezing hallway.

Gideon led them both back up the stairs, the lantern throwing shadows onto the walls. Though he walked slowly for Peter’s sake, Peter could hear Gideon’s breath speed up and up until he was almost panting. Glancing at him, Peter could see his eyes were black and glittering with fear. He felt a spurt of anger. Well, let him be afraid. God knew, Peter had been scared half out of his reason. Why should the cruel little Marquis not suffer too?

But Gideon cast him a look and Peter’s anger melted away. He looked just as he had that night he had come to Peter in London, just out of prison, thin and nervy and desperate for Peter’s comfort. Peter would have done anything to help him.

And look where that had got him.

“I’m so sorry my dear Peter,” Gideon whispered.

“Don’t,” was all Peter said, and opened the door to his bedroom, and safety.

“The animals are here!” Gideon said with pleasure. Agrippa had obviously bolted straight back to the room, and Clair de Lune the cat had deigned to come out from under the bed.

Gideon set the lantern down and fiddled with it until the flame illuminated the whole room. Peter crouched to see to the fire, Clair taking the opportunity to leap from his bed and onto the hearthrug, where Agrippa had already stretched himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gideon shrug off the gleaming fur coat he wore, and a dark grey tweed jacket he must have bought on one of his visits to London.

Having nothing left to distract himself with, Peter sat down on the edge of the armchair and looked across the room at the other man. Gideon, as though his legs had given up on him, sat down suddenly on Peter’s bed. Peter could see him trembling.

“Do excuse me,” Gideon said, as though his nervous fright was merely bad manners. “I am a little tired from my journey. I would be grateful my dear chap if I could perhaps lie down for a moment.”

“No!” Peter barked and Gideon looked at him in surprise. But he wanted answers from the man. And more than that, he did not want Gideon glamorously lounging on his bed in his shirt sleeves, looking vulnerable and in need of warmth and kindness. He hardened his heart.

“Your mouth…” Gideon began, and pointed. Peter raised a hand to his lip; blood was still welling. Gideon held out a large monogrammed handkerchief and Peter took it from him and dabbed his mouth before handing it back.

“Why am I here, Gideon?” he said.

Gideon looked at him for a long moment.

“It began with the books,” Gideon said.

Peter couldn’t make sense of this.

“Which books?”

Gideon took a breath. “I will tell you now that none of this story will paint me in a very good light,” he said, attempting levity.

“Go ahead. You couldn’t do anything lower yourself in my regard,” Peter bit out and saw the hurt flare in Gideon’s eyes. Good he told himself, but his heart didn’t feel it.

“I told you once that my Uncle had a collection of books on the occult. When I was younger I thought perhaps they exerted influence on him, spoke to him in some way. I could not understand why my mother would have appointed such an evil man my guardian, unless he had not always been that way. I could hear him sometimes, pacing up and down the Long Gallery, muttering and chanting to himself. I used to hide under my bed and pray for someone to come and make it all stop. And in a way, someone did.”

Gideon stopped for a moment at this rather cryptic point. He had always been an excellent, if dramatic story teller.

“Get on, Gideon,” Peter said, not willing to let himself feel sympathy for the young Gideon, trapped alone here with his Uncle.

“As I said, my prayers didn’t work - at least, not in the way I hoped. And I grew up and escaped the house as soon as I came into my inheritance and left him to his own devices. But as time went on he became more addicted. He was addled, confused. Always distracted. He talked of demons and power and eternal life...it terrified me. I worried he was going to hurt somebody - or that he already had. So one night I stole the books I thought had the worst influence on him. But I was too scared to destroy them.”

“What became of them?” Though Peter thought he knew. “Oh. You sold them.”

Gideon nodded. “I was very careful you know, to make sure I knew who had them. I would try to meet the men who bought them, assure myself that they suffered no ill effects.”

“And I was one,” Peter realised. Good Christ. His silly interest in books on the occult could surely not be the reason he had ended up here.

“You were. You took four of them. I traced you through your colleagues to Sothebys that day,” Gideon paused for a moment, a small smile on his lips. “To say I was taken aback when I saw you would be an understatement.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was expecting to see an antiquarian bookseller. An old man. I was not expecting someone who was...like you.” Gideon smiled, his eyes softening, and Peter cursed himself as he felt a blush rise to his face. Damn the man for charming him even as he explained why he’d tried to murder him.

“ I could not understand why you would be drawn to owning them at all. Most of the people the books enticed were older, or had some darkness in them, something twisted.”

Peter swallowed, trying not to think of the thoughts of other men that twisted within him all the time. But that was different, he tried to tell himself.

“I assure you, I bought them merely as a curiosity,” he said.

“I believe you.”

“And then you came to my home. To check on the books?”

“In part,” Gideon said shortly, and there was that softness around his eyes again that Peter almost couldn’t bear.

“You tried to speak to me about them,” Peter remembered. “And I dismissed them out of hand.”

“I hoped what was contained within them wasn’t real, and you convinced me,” Gideon said. “You are so sensible, my friend. Feet so firmly on the ground. You were like a cool lake of water in a desert of confusion. I thought my Uncle had played with my mind, that perhaps he had hypnotised me or sent me mad with fear.”

Peter remembered how he had dismissed the occult as ‘taradiddle’ and the men who played with it as silly fools. And Gideon had first seemed to disagree, and then to relax.

“You told me it was all imagination. You cannot know what that meant to me. I had thought I was going mad,” Gideon said.

“But surely that must have been enough to assure you that I wouldn’t use the books. Why ask me to work for you then? It doesn’t make any sense. Surely it was best to let well alone!”

“I am not always renowned for doing what is best, Peter,” Gideon said. “And we enjoyed each other’s company, you cannot say we did not.”

Peter said nothing. ‘Enjoyed each other’s company’ could not come close to what he had felt.

It had been so much more than that, to him. Gideon had invited Peter to stay with him at his perfect little chateau in his perfect corner of France and it had forged them a friendship like none Peter had ever had. And that had only been the beginning. They had begun to see each other in London on a monthly basis, and every summer afterwards, Peter would spend three blissful weeks in Gideon’s company at his chateau, riding, swimming, spending languorous evenings on the terrace working their way through Gideon’s wine cellar. Smoking cigars. Setting the world to rights. _Longing_. Though that was an activity that Peter supposed he had taken part in alone. Nevertheless, he had treasured the memory of those summers, and would all his days. Or so he had thought.

“What changed then?”

“But nothing changed,” Gideon said, surprised.

Peter lost any remaining patience.

“Be honest with me Gideon; at least give me that. Do you mean our friendship was false from the start then? You lured me here under false pretences, you relied on my...my regard and concern for you and then you left me here.”

“I didn’t mean...I find it hard to think clearly in this place. Peter, please…”

Gideon held out his hand to Peter.

Gideon had taken his hand just as he left two days ago, Peter remembered, as he had thanked him for taking care of this upsetting task. Peter didn’t often allow himself to touch Gideon. But the warm press of his hand at that moment had made Peter’s tongue run away with itself. “It gives me great pleasure to be of service to you,” he had burst out.

Christ, could his pathetic devotion have been more apparent.

He folded his arms deliberately and Gideon let his hand fall.

“No, that was not my plan, not ever,” he said. “Our friendship I hope was always true. I never meant for you to come here at all.”

“Well then for God’s sake, tell me why I am here at all!”

Gideon buried his face in his hands. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“Begin where you decided to sacrifice me,” Peter said.

“My plan was never that,” Gideon said. “I brought you here to save you.”

Peter was speechless for a moment. “You…”

“You don’t understand,” Gideon said.

“No I bloody don’t!”

“If you’d just listen - there was no choice. And I knew you’d survive it, I...”

“You stupid…” Peter stood and paced, tugged at his hair. “You bloody child. Are you insane? Do you think I’m some magician, some supernatural sorcerer who can defeat demons? Of all the selfish...you might as well have ripped my throat out yourself!”

“Why do you say that?” Gideon said, urgent suddenly. “Your throat?”

“Because that creature ripped the throat from my reflection earlier tonight,” Peter spat. “I watched it happen. And now my reflection is gone, and probably my soul with it, if any of what you are saying is true. So forgive me if your great sorrow at leaving me here is falling on hard ground.”

“Your throat,” Gideon said quietly, and even despite the horror of what the spoke of, Peter took a spark of pleasure from the way the word rolled around Gideon’s mouth. "That's the first. Then your eyes. And then it takes your heart."

"And then..."

Gideon shook his head.

"But how have you survived it?" Peter said. “You lived here, for YEARS. And your uncle...I’ve heard stories about the two of you.”

Gideon’s face drained of all colour.

“What have you heard?”

“That you would fight with your uncle. That you lived in mortal terror of him. That he would creep into your bedroom at night and frighten you terribly in some way, with some threat…”

“Mr Mallenger told you, of course,” Gideon said slowly, looking as though he might like to faint.

"Yes, he told me about his visit here. So even then, ten years ago, it needed fed. How are you untouched by it? Have you some pact with that demon thing?"

This final insult seemed to awaken Gideon from his state of shock.

"Untouched? No," he said, shaking his head. "Very far from untouched.”

He stood. Walking to the window, he unfastened the shutters. Peter made a movement to stop him, unsure what he planned to do. Surely he would not throw himself out?

But Gideon merely folded the shutters against the wall.

“That creature has violated me in every way possible. It has had it's filthy hands on my very soul. You think I don't know how it feels to have its breath on me? You have watched your own throat torn out, but I...well. See me!"

He seized Peter's wrist suddenly and jerked him towards the window Peter struggled, but Gideon had already released him. Gideon turned to face the window, which acted in the darkness like a huge mirror. Yet neither of them were reflected in it.

Gideon slipped the blood opal ring from his finger and Peter stumbled backwards in fright.

The Gideon in the reflection was horrifying. Throat torn, one of his eyes gouged, his ribcage ripped open. It seemed impossible that he could stand, and even as Peter watched, the corpse-like body began to sway, the limbs to fold. Gideon slipped the ring back on his finger and the vision disappeared.

Peter gulped for air.

"Was that...real?"

"That was what is left of my soul," Gideon said.

“Oh,” Peter said weakly, and it came out as almost a sob. “Gideon, my _God_.”

Gideon banged the shutters back across the window and turned to face him, whole and unmarked again. Peter lifted a shaky hand, wanting to touch for himself, to make sure that this Gideon was the real one, but stopped himself. He groped instead for the armchair and collapsed into it. Gideon came over and crouched beside him, his hands on either side of Peter’s thighs and his dark, frightening eyes looking straight at him.

“Peter, my dear,” he said. “Do you believe that I had no choice but to bring you here?”

 

**xxxx**

**Gideon**

It felt wrong to push his advantage at that moment, when Peter was so shocked. But though this would have - and had - stopped him in the past, it did not any more. Taking the ring off always left him this way for a while, as though a little of his humanity escaped every time he removed it. It was as though his feelings were behind glass. He knew what he should feel, he knew what he should do, but it was hard to care about it. This is what being soulless was.

“I, I don’t know,” Peter said, his face contorting with panic.

“I have completed a bargain for your life.”

Gideon looked at Peter, taking in his pale face and the dark stubble on his jaw; his dark brown hair all on end and his grey eyes wide. He looked close to tears and if Gideon had had his whole soul, he perhaps would not have found this as attractive as he did. The part of Gideon that was still Gideon wanted to hold Peter and soothe his fear away, but most of him wanted to kiss him and touch him, to watch the pained vulnerability on his face change to excitement. Jesus Christ, he was awful.

“I dearly wish that you would start making sense,” Peter said. “Just tell me what is to happen to me, for God’s sake.”

Gideon knew he was being cruel, withholding information from Peter. Searching for the tiny piece of humanity that was left in him, he carried on.

“My Uncle summoned a demon many years ago, and began feeding it the souls of living things in return for a longer life.”

Peter’s eyes widened in disbelief, and his throat worked as he swallowed, but he said nothing.

“It seems like a tall story, I know. But the demon has fed on me, and now it wants the rest of me. And I can’t let it, or at least not the way it wants to get it,” Gideon said. He stopped for a moment, trying to formulate a version of the story that he could tell Peter. A way of leaving out what was at the heart of everything - that he had fallen in love with a man, and been found out.

It was all his own stupid fault of course.

He had kept all Peter’s letters - every single one, for four years - tied together with a ribbon and wrapped in a hankerchief Peter had left behind which smelled of his cologne. He kept them hidden in a small valise which he travelled everywhere with. Sentimental of course, and incredibly foolish, though there was nothing incriminating in the letters themselves. But they were tied up like love letters and worn out from being read and re-read, and it would be obvious to anyone who saw them that they meant a great deal.

It had been his damned valet who had betrayed him to his Uncle. Gideon had had no idea that his Uncle was paying the man to spy on him, look for a weak spot or some leverage with him.

His Uncle had grown madder and more reckless over the years. He had written to Gideon continually; wild ramblings about sacrificing their souls to the Demon, becoming immortal and invincible together. To what end? Gideon had no idea. He only knew that the Demon had tasted his soul many times over the years to keep his Uncle alive. A terrified child, he had not wanted the only adult left in his life to die and leave him alone. So though he had resisted in horror at first, he had submitted in the end, and over and over again. His Uncle had performed some ritual with the rings - he wore one and Gideon the other - which prevented the Demon devouring him entirely, but the Demon it seemed had become impatient. Greedy.

He needed to gain control of it again, his Uncle wrote. Gideon must help him. The Demon did not want his Uncle’s twisted soul, it didn’t nourish him the way Gideon’s sweet young one did. Please. Come.

Gideon had ignored all of these pleas of course, until that final one.

_I have received an interesting package of letters, Nephew. Peter Letting is a prolific and amusing writer. He appears to be your very dear friend. I have scryed for him of course, with the kerchief. I have been watching him._

Gideon had run to his bedroom, hauling the valise from under the bed. Empty. Throwing open the door to his valet’s room, he found that empty too. Dear God. He breathed hard, breaking into a cold sweat,. His Uncle had been watching his dear Peter. And if he could scry for him, did it mean he could hurt him?

Within two hours, Gideon stood before his Uncle in the blue salon.

His Uncle had aged horribly, his back bent almost in two, his eyes sunken and hands claw like. So this was his fate when he wasn’t pleasing the Demon any longer. Gideon found he could not care.

“This is your final chance, nephew. He grows impatient for a taste of you,” his Uncle said.

“There is nothing left of me to spare,” Gideon said. “And once I’m gone, then what? You’ll have nothing.”

“Oh I can find Him more, if I only get my strength back a little,” his Uncle said. He indicated the neat pile of letters on the table beside him. Gideon made a movement towards them, but his Uncle held up his emaciated hand.

“Now, now. Just wait.” He leant over to one side in his chair and pulled Peter’s handkerchief from his pocket. Spreading it across his lap he held his hand above it muttering words.

A movement in the mirror made Gideon look up.

The blue salon was no longer reflected there at all, but instead Peter’s drawing-room appeared, with Peter sitting in his favourite chair before the fire, a book in his hand (of course) and a glass of wine beside him.

“No,” Gideon whispered.

“So here is the object of your affections,” his Uncle said, creaking out a nasty laugh. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. And he’s handsome enough.”

Gideon couldn’t take his eyes off Peter as he bent over his book. Then the mirror blurred and re-focused, and Peter wasn’t alone in the room any longer. A tall man had come in, and Peter stood to greet him. Gideon couldn’t hear what they were saying but Peter was smiling and laughing in a way that tore at Gideon’s heart.

And then the man put his hands on Peter’s waist and pressed his mouth to Peter’s, and they were kissing wildly and passionately. The man half lifted Peter, shoving him hard against the wall and holding him there while Peter threw his head back in ecstacy.

“Stop this,” Gideon said, a sob rising in his throat. “It isn’t real.”

“It could be real,” his Uncle said, his dry lips curving into a smile. “Very soon.”

As though he had heard them, the tall man looked sharply over his shoulder and directly at Gideon. Without breaking eye contact, he moved his hand from Peter’s waist to his throat and began to squeeze it. Peter began to struggle, as helpless as a rag doll. A horrible smile spread across the man’s face and his eyes flared red. The Demon.

“No! This is not real, and I shall never help you,” Gideon said, backing away.

“Sit!” his Uncle ordered, and Gideon felt himself flung against the wall by some force. He slid down the wall and sat still, his head thumping.

His Uncle had kept Gideon there for hour after hour, showing him visions, tormenting him. Peter, lifeless, his throat torn out. Peter tortured by invisible pain, emaciated, dying. And almost worse, (and it sickened Gideon that he thought so) Peter fucking or being fucked roughly by other men. Loving it. Looking mockingly into Gideon’s eyes as he was choked or hit. Gideon was maddened by it. And all through it his Uncle whispered to him relentlessly that this would be how Peter would meet his end, or this way, or this way, unless Gideon saved him.

But Gideon fought back. His Uncle wasn’t showing him the future, he was only turning his desires against him. And God knew he had dealt with that before, having been frequently reckless with his choice of lovers. He waited. He endured until he sensed his Uncle was exhausted from the exertion of this torment and that he could at last break away. Telling his Uncle that he wished he would die and cleanse the world of his foul presence, he tore himself away from the seductive visions in that hideous mirror and escaped the house entirely.

He couldn’t have known that his Uncle would die only two days later, and that he would be blamed. On his release from prison he had only one thought - he had to make sure Peter was safe.

Peter was his warm, sweet self when Gideon arrived in London so unexpectedly, and was so kind and solicitous that Gideon could have wept. He had been so alone, and now he was here with Peter and it mended a part of him he had thought was utterly broken. Surely now his Uncle was dead they were both safe again?

This hope was shattered when Gideon went to bathe and change in Peter’s bathroom, and glanced into the mirror.

This vision was a simple one. Gideon, possessed by the Demon, murdering Peter with a knife as Peter, terror and confusion on his dear face, begged Gideon for his life. His Uncle, restored to health, looked on.

“Not real, not real,” Gideon muttered closing his eyes. He started to undress for his bath, shrugging his jacket from his shoulders.

A knife he had never seen before slid from the inside pocket. He froze in disbelief. Almost without realising, he stretched a hand out, his fingers aching to pick it up.

His reflection was doing just that. Picking the knife up and weighing it in his hand. Mockingly, it pretended to draw the knife along its own throat as it leered at him.

“No!” Gideon moaned, trembling all over with the desire to pick that knife up and stab with it. Instead he tightened his grip on the edge of the sink. “Please. I’ll do anything.” His reflection was laughing at him now, slashing the knife through the air.

Gideon covered his face with his hands. “How I hate you. Please Uncle. I’ll do anything you want. Just tell me what to do.”

“Give us the rest of your soul. And one piece of his,” said Gideon’s Uncle. “The demon wants to taste him for himself. This lonely man. Delicious.” The Gideon in the vision laughed and licked his lips.

“If I don’t?”

“Then either you’ll murder your little obsession and we’ll have your soul anyway. He’ll survive losing one part of his.”

Gideon felt lightheaded with panic. “How shall you take it?”

“You take him to us, and leave him for one night. Just one night. And then come back. You can’t say it isn’t a fair bargain. All of you and a taste of him. That’s all.”

His Uncle grinned suddenly. “You would have been enough you know, if you had only given yourself up to me when I asked,” he said. “But you’re selfish. You have always been so selfish and cowardly, and now your friend will suffer for it. All you do is spread misery, little nephew, don’t you realise? But here I am offering salvation - you bring him to us and at least you’ll save a life before you die.”

Gideon shook his head as tears welled in his eyes. His Uncle only laughed and stood aside to let Gideon see the vision of Peter again; bloody and lifeless.

Gideon let out a desperate cry and smashed the mirror to pieces.

 

**Xxxx**

**Peter**

 

Peter tried to take in what Gideon had told him.

“So this Demon wants your soul. Wanted you to murder me, and the only way to stop that happening was to bring me here and let it feed on me?” he said.

“You must believe me,” Gideon said. And Peter wanted to, but there was something in his eyes that was evasive and shifty, and God knew the man could lie. He had been such a fool already.

“How can I believe you?” he said. “Gideon...you’re not _honest_.”

Gideon reddened as though Peter had slapped him. He let out a breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

“That’s fair,” he said, nodding. “You’re right.”

Peter didn’t want him to accept it, he wanted him to fight back. He couldn’t bear this hurt, meek Gideon, accepting his insults.

“You could have told me the truth. But you didn’t warn me, you didn’t even try. You just acted and lied, and told me about the death of your Uncle as though it was a curious mystery story that Holmes and Watson might like to solve. And all along you knew what you were doing. You…” Peter’s voice broke a little. “God help me, I was so pleased to be able to offer you my assistance!”

“I was so scared you were going to die,” Gideon whispered. “My dear Peter, I had to do it.”

“How can I trust you now? Was any of it real? Any part of our friendship?” Peter asked, the hurt in his voice naked now.

“All of it!” Gideon said urgently. “You must believe me Peter - you were separate to all of this horror. My safe haven. I didn’t think about the lying that way, though of course I should have - anyone else would have I’m sure. You are so moral and kind, but I didn’t grow up with very much of either of those things, and I didn’t think. You made it easy not to think of it at all. I always felt completely whole in your company.”

And Peter had felt the same. My God, didn’t Peter himself have a secret he lied about every day of his damn life? He was fighting so hard to hold onto his disbelief and anger, but for what?

He had been trying to reimagine Gideon as a monster; a cruel, uncaring man who had meticulously planned to ensnare Peter, to charm him, lure him, and then sacrifice him. But that wasn’t true and he knew it. Gideon had been quite clearly caught up in something he had no idea of how to get out of. Yes, Peter had been lured to this place, but the rest? He had fallen for Gideon because of his own nature, not because Gideon had fooled him into loving him.

He felt the fight go out of him.

“Why me, of all people? How did your Uncle even know I existed?” he said.

Gideon looked away. “I perhaps mentioned you to him once. I can’t remember and it doesn’t make any difference now. He wants to torment me, because I am alive and he is dead, and making me a murderer would delight him. Anyway,” He said. “Now I am here. I have kept my part of the bargain and you should be safe to go.”

“But…” Peter said.

“You must, Peter,” Gideon said, his eyes intent on him. “For God’s sake, if you don’t then all of this was for nothing.”

But if Gideon died, then it would all have been for nothing anyway. How did he expect to live, knowing Gideon had perished here alone, thinking Peter hadn’t cared enough to even try to stop it?

“No,” Peter said suddenly. “I am not having this. I am just not having it.”

“I know I can’t expect you to believe me when I’ve lied and lied,” Gideon said, misunderstanding him. “But even if you don’t, surely you want to get away? The horse I came here on is perfectly well in the stables...”

“No. I mean I’m not going to just hand you over like a pig to slaughter, and then go off to quietly live my life with only part of my soul. It’s just not...cricket!” Peter said.

“Peter,” said Gideon, bursting with a surprised chuckle. They looked at each other.

“I am so sorry my dear chap,” Gideon said again.

“Well, if you are, you can prove it,” Peter said. “I don’t know what the whole truth of any of this is, but I do think we’d both rather have our souls back than not.”

“Very much so,” Gideon said.

“So then. If your Uncle summoned this bloody thing up, then we can send it bloody well back. That’s all,” Peter said. “It’ll be in the books of course.”

“But I got rid of the books,” Gideon said.

“I’m afraid to tell you my dear fellow, you might have done so, but your Uncle just replaced them with more. I’ve seen them myself,” Peter said.

“Oh. Oh I didn’t think of that,” Gideon said, and looked so crestfallen that Peter wanted to hug him.

“Not to worry. It was a sound idea. It brought you to me after all,” Peter said, trying to make that sound lighthearted.

Gideon looked at him, his eyes shining. “Yes, it did. And a jolly good thing too.”

Gideon using English schoolboy slang always amused Peter and it lifted his spirits now.

“Exactly. Now, you take your cane, and I’ll take that axe, and we’ll go and get them, shall we?”

Gideon nodded, not able to suppress a smile of pure happiness.

 

**Xxxx**

They walked into the Long Gallery shoulder to shoulder, both taking comfort from the contact.

“I see you have redecorated,” Gideon whispered, looking at the rows of mirrors Peter had attacked with his axe only a few hours before.

“I thought it quite avant-garde,” Peter said.

“It worked though?”

“I think so,” said Peter, holding the lantern high and consulting some shelving. “Ah, yes. Here. Hideous, aren’t they?”

Gideon shivered. “Truly.”

They got to work, flicking through the pages of the stack of grimoires Peter had selected, trying to find any kind of ritual that seemed appropriate.

“Here is a man and a demon,” Gideon said looking up from his book. “But I don’t know enough Latin to translate. Here.”

Gideon showed him the picture. “Shall you have to wrestle it?” he said, a worried frown on his face.

“Let’s find an alternative,” Peter said firmly. And he didn’t want to say anything to Gideon, but that didn’t look quite like wrestling, and he’d really rather not have what it _did_ look like as an option.

Peter continued to read. There was something sickening about this book - every instinct he had was telling him to throw it from him and run from the room. He found it harder and harder to go on with every page he turned, every vile illustration or description of a ritual to make wicked things happen. His head ached.

“These books don’t want to be read,” Gideon said. “Can you feel it Peter? They don’t want us looking at them.”

Peter nodded grimly. Of course. The books were trying to repulse them. It must mean that they were close to making a discovery. He rubbed his eyes as a page blurred in front of him. It came back into focus again, but before he could read the title of the page, two of the illustrations started to move. One was clearly him, the other Gideon. Before his eyes they entwined in a mockery of what he imagined the sex act to be, making it filthy and ludicrous all at once. He let out a small gasp and went to slam the book shut, but stopped himself. No. This must mean he was close. Dragging his eyes from the illustration, he read the first sentence.

“Here,” Peter said. “Here, I’ve found it. This is the summoning ritual. And this…” he stabbed a finger, “Contains and banishes it.”

“You marvellous man,” Gideon said, patting his shoulder enthusiastically. “What do we need to do?”

“We have to draw this awful thing on the floor,” Peter said. Gideon was already running to the desk, rummaging wildly.

“Here - ink, or wait, here is chalk,” he said, rushing back. “ But we should draw it in the blue salon. It always seemed strongest there.”

It took the best part of an hour to draw out. It was so hard in the dark, with only one lantern between them, and both of the jumping at sounds and shadows. Peter’s fingers ached with the cold as he gripped the stump of chalk and drew the elaborate series of pentagrams the ritual required.

“There,” Peter said at last. He stood and Gideon stood with him.

Gideon looked sick. “I don’t like to touch it,” he said. “Please don’t you touch it either.”

“No fear of that,” Peter said.

“So we must summon it,” Gideon said. He was white as the chalk he held.

“Have you done that before?” Peter said, more curious than anything.

“Me, never. But I have seen my Uncle do it. What does the book say?” Gideon peered over Peter’s shoulder. “Oh, yes.”

Gideon picked up a small shard of mirror from the heaps on the floor and deliberately cut his thumb. He dripped two drops of blood into the centre of their diagram. “I command you, demon.” he began.

Gideon’s eyes darkened as the words came from him by rote. He gripped Peter’s hand tightly suddenly, and Peter felt a hideous thickening in the air as the demon began to manifest. Gideon’s words faltered.

The creature had fully appeared in the centre of their diagram, shuffling and snorting as it dragged its decaying body towards them. As they watched, it drooled from the corners of its broken mouth.

Peter hesitated. How could this work? It was all nonsense - ridiculous men making up fairystories about controlling demons. It was mortifying to be standing there about to perform one of these nonsenses.

“Peter....” Gideon said. “You must begin!”

Peter looked down at the ritual and then up at the creature and yet still he hesitated. He had never felt so English in his life. What other accursed nationality would, when faced with a demon, be held back from banishing it by pure embarrassment?

Damn it all.

He began to read. He stumbled at first over the unfamiliar phrases (and some small part of his brain was horrified at just how bad the rhyming couplets were) but he forced himself onwards, and Gideon put a hand around his wrist and held on tight, and they read together.

The demon had started speaking to Peter, inside his head. Things that sent him reeling, the most shameful, disgusting things. Peter heard Gideon moan in horror and felt him bury his face in Peter’s coat sleeve like a child and knew the same thing must be happening to him. And God if this had roamed in his nightmares as a child then Peter was sure he’d feel the same. But they carried on reading, Peter finding strength in Gideon holding onto him, though they were both as terrified as each other.

“It’s working,” Gideon said.

The creature in front of them started to writhe in agony, screaming as it did so. Its wax like claws scratched at its own face, pulling off what was left of the flesh there. Oh God. Peter closed his eyes as the thing ripped its own body to pieces and howled in rage. The strength of its anger knocked Gideon and Peter to their knees and blew the mirror shards into the air like flying daggers. Gideon dragged Peter behind a bookcase and protected them both with his coat.

In the silence that followed, something clattered to the floor and Gideon made a small sound and darted forward to pick it up.

“It had my Uncle’s ring,” he said. “You have it Peter, it will protect you.”

Peter shoved it on his finger, hardly caring. Something incredible was happening. “Look, Gideon,” he said.

Streams of light unfurled from the creature’s body, strangely beautiful.

“Oh,” Peter said and stepped forward, Gideon by his side. The light soaked through both of them and Peter felt a moment of complete joy and wholeness as his soul was mended. He laughed aloud with delight and turned to look for his friend.

Gideon was standing by what was left of the immense mirror, smiling from ear to ear. He was admiring his reflection (and who wouldn’t, Peter thought. He was ridiculously handsome) and he looked years younger in his happiness. Peter wanted to pick him up and spin him around. In his euphoria he thought he might just do it. He took a step towards Gideon, and Gideon smiled even wider and began to say something, when Peter froze.

The door to the salon in the mirror was opening.

Peter cast a look over his shoulder to see the door behind them firmly shut.

He turned back and screamed “Gideon!” He reached out for him, but it was too late. They’d both forgotten that this was the only mirror the creature had broken from its own side. The entrance.

The creature reached for Gideon’s reflection just as Gideon managed to push the ring back onto his finger and something went wrong then, because Gideon had disappeared from the blue salon and only now existed in the reflection.

“No!” screamed Peter, and pushed the axe towards the mirror so it would be reflected. Gideon bent at once to pick it up and swung it at the creature, managing to slice at one of its arms, before disappearing through the door and out of Peter’s sight.

Peter dropped to his knees in despair. Scrabbling for the book he realised there was another page, and he’d missed it and oh God he’d fucked this up beyond all measure. He had restored their stolen souls but he hadn’t bound the demon back into hell. And now Gideon, his dear Gideon would be fed on by that thing, and lose his soul all over again.

 

**xxxx**

 

**Gideon**

He ran.

He ran down the gallery, each mirror on this side smashed too, and then out and into the hallway, but everything was different. There were mirrors everywhere, showing different rooms, cities, countries. Worlds, for all Gideon knew. The hallway was endless, reeling out and out in front of him, mirror after mirror.

He kept running until he couldn’t breath.

Stay calm. All he had to do was stay calm. Look for something he recognised in the mirrors. Taking great, painful breaths in he looked around him. Nothing, nothing. He could be here for centuries and never manage to look in all of these mirrors. Panic began to rise.

He must do something else then. He assessed. He had the axe, he had his soul, and Peter was alive and safe on the other side. No need for despair. And what else? His handkerchief.

Wait, though…Gideon pulled the handkerchief from his pocket. Of course, it was stained with Peter’s blood. He could scry for him.

He’d seen his Uncle do it a thousand times, and his memory didn’t fail him, even though he had no candle. But he had the words and the blood. He spread the handkerchief out on the floor and began.

The huge mirror nearest him blurred then focussed and he could see him, the dear man, searching everywhere for a mirror. He was in the kitchen contemplating the shininess of a silver soup tureen and Gideon almost laughed. But the kitchen would be hopeless.

“Go to the bedrooms!” Gideon urged, though of course Peter couldn’t hear him.

And yet...Peter looked down at the ring he wore suddenly. Then he left the kitchen at a run and headed upstairs.

Peter

He’d realised the kitchen was hopeless. Could he face the bedrooms? Just as he had the thought, the ring on his finger had got warm. Perhaps it was a sign.

He burst into room after room, tugging dust sheets off the hulking furniture. The first two rooms were no good but the third had a looking glass set into a wardrobe door.

Not caring any longer whether he summoned the creature to him, he hammered on it.

"Peter!" And there he was, there was his wonderful, pale, terrified face on the other side.

"Gideon! Are you alright?"

"I have outrun it for now. But the chateau is different on this side, I cannot always find my way."

Peter hesitated, then placed his hand flat against the glass. Gideon raised his and placed it against Peter's, like a reflection.

"Damn everything. I mucked it up my dear friend. I missed an entire page."

"Not at all," Gideon said. "My soul, Peter...it is within me again. Even if I don't live long, my God at least I am living."

Peter looked at him; really looked. The light was back in his friend's eyes and his face was alive with feeling, as though someone had lit him from the inside. Peter was reminded of the very first time he'd seen him, at Sotheby's. Then it had felt uncomfortable to be the object of the fierceness of Gideon's gaze. Now it felt just as it should be.

“Never mind all this now,” Peter said. “We need to get you out.”

“What happens if I break the glass on this side?” Gideon said.

“I don’t know,” Peter said honestly.

“Peter,” Gideon said slowly. “Use the hand that wears the ring.” He pressed his hand flatter against the glass. Peter switched hands quickly.

“I can feel your hand,” Gideon said. “My God Peter, I truly can!”

“Then break the mirror, now,” Peter said. Gideon swung the axe and his image shattered into a thousand pieces.

Peter cried out, but then he felt the warmth of Gideon’s hand against his, and he grasped it and tugged as hard as he could, and there was Gideon, flesh and blood, life and soul, and in his arms.

And one of the demon’s hands around his ankle.

“No!” Peter screamed, and raised his axe. “NO! I, I compel you!”

All the words of the ritual escaped him in his panic. Gideon struggled, clawing at the floor as it tried to drag him back through.

“I compel thee demon...I…” Peter frantically searched his memory. This was hopeless. How could he trust everything to a ritual when he barely believed them?

The creature turned its face to Peter’s and opened its great mouth as though it meant to bite Peter’s throat out all over again and Peter lost any remaining presence of mind he might have had. Instead he stepped up to the demon, swung his axe, and took its head off.

The creature broke apart like a rotting carcass and Peter and Gideon scrambled to get away from the foulness.

“Oh dear God,” Gideon said breathlessly, rolling over onto his back. “If you’ll forgive me Peter, I might just indulge in a small fit of hysterics.”

“Yes, but I really think I’d rather you did that far away from the corpse of that...thing.” Peter said.

“Good idea,” Gideon said weakly. “Help me up, dear chap, won’t you?”

Supporting Gideon with an arm around his back, Peter half carried him along the hall to his bedroom.

Gently, he helped Gideon onto the bed and he lay back gratefully.

A strange silence descended on the two of them and Peter sought to fill it.

“How do you feel?” he said.

“Exhausted and so incredibly light. I can’t explain how it feels,” said Gideon, his dark eyes sparkling. “I can truly live now. I feel that I care again. I can be with other people. I won’t just have to wander all the time.”

The thought of Gideon caring disturbed Peter in a way he wasn’t sure about.

“Shall you settle down, do you think? Marry, perhaps?” he asked, before wishing he’d bitten his tongue.

“I should jolly well think not!” Gideon exclaimed. Peter smiled at his vehemence.

“You cannot rattle around in that Chateau alone all your life,” he said. “ You aren’t a solitary creature like me. You want company.”

“I do,” Gideon said. “But…” he paused for a moment, then seemed to make a decision and pressed on.

“But I cannot marry the person I want company from,” he said.

“Oh dear. A married woman, my dear chap?” Peter said, trying to make a joke of it. Why he had started this conversation was beyond him. He was in no fit mental state to hear Gideon in raptures about someone else.

But Gideon was shaking his head.

“No woman, married or otherwise. It is men, my dear chap,” Gideon said. “I like the company of men.”

Peter’s mind slowed to a stop. All he could see in the firelight were Gideon’s dark eyes, scanning his face over and over again.

“You. Y-you…” A thousand conflicting feelings surged in Peter, seizing up his mouth. He should say something, anything, but instead he only stared.

“Of all the confessions I have made to you over the last few hours, this is the one which renders you speechless?” Gideon said, keeping his voice light. But Peter could see the way his fingers were clenched in his coat.

“I had no idea of your inclinations,” Peter said slowly. “All these years...I had heard rumours of you with women.” He felt suddenly and desperately hurt.

“Ah then it worked,” Gideon said. “It was calculated of course. Ruin my reputation in one way to save it in another. And there are women who are happy to be part of the deception if they can be seen on the arm of a Count. But I had no idea you had heard this of me. I hope you did not think less of me,” Gideon said.

“Not in the least. None of my business,” Peter said abruptly. Gideon gave him one of his long, searching looks which seemed to penetrate his very thoughts. Peter closed his eyes briefly, unable to bear the scrutiny.

“I did hope once, that you might want to make it your business,” Gideon said quietly. He played with the opal ring on his finger.

“I, um...” Peter hesitated.

“You must know the regard I hold you in,” Gideon said.

“And I you,” Peter said. “The highest regard, my dear friend.”

“You said the exact opposite only a few hours ago,” Gideon said.

“I thought you were trying to kill me, you fool,” Peter said, and Gideon half smiled at that. “Of course I don’t truly feel that way. Our friendship has meant a great deal to me over the years.”

He heard the forced heartiness in his voice and felt despairing. Why could he just not say what he really meant? But Gideon was making such startling confessions, and everything felt too much, too sudden. He wasn’t ready.

“And to me,” Gideon said. But for me it has always been much more than that. Because from the first moment I saw you, that was it.”

Peter’s heart beat so hard he felt like it might stop. “What was it?” he said, his mouth drying.

“You were,” Gideon said. He fixed his dark, dark eyes on Peter.

“I don’t understand,” Peter said.

“Yes you do,” Gideon said.

And there it was, out in the open. Peter felt as though he was falling.

“Don’t make fun of me,” he burst out, unsure suddenly. He couldn’t bear it. “Please don’t.”

“I am not making fun,” Gideon said. He reached out and took one of Peter’s hands.

Peter moved towards him. He looked at Gideon for a moment, a final flickering doubt making him search for any hint of mockery or deception in those frightening eyes of his. But there was none; only an open expression of vulnerability and hope.

Peter gave in. He couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face. A similar smile began to lift at the corners of Gideon’s mouth, and Peter, who had always found that mouth so irresistible, bent and kissed it.

It wasn’t much more than a press of their lips, for Peter hadn’t the slightest clue how one went about kissing people, but Gideon still sighed in a most delightful way. And Peter very much wanted to do it again immediately afterwards, but first he had to ask.

“For heaven's sake, why didn’t you say something?” he said.

“I couldn’t, Peter,” Gideon said. “Usually I can tell at once if a man wants me, but I couldn’t work you out at all. And I spent weeks every summer wearing practically nothing when we swam in the lake and you never seemed to bat an eyelid.”

Peter spluttered. Gideon made an impatient noise and half turned away.

Peter stopped him by putting his hands on Gideon’s shoulders.

“But of course I wanted you,” he said. “I did. But you must see - I hadn’t the least idea how to go about it. I have read books about it of course, but in practical terms…”

Gideon’s eyes lit up. “Oh my dear Peter. Books, of course you have. My mistake. Usually I am much more bold. But you disconcerted me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever done that to anyone before,” Peter said. “I didn’t mean to.”

Gideon laughed again, a genuine one this time.

“All this time…” Peter said. Gideon nodded.

“And you? How long?” Gideon asked.

“From the first moment I saw you,” Peter said, threading his fingers through the dark silk of Gideon’s hair, and felt Gideon smile his delightful smile against his lips.

A freezing draught blew under the door.

“Here, we should keep warm,” said Gideon, pulling his fur with the astrakhan collar over them both.

“You were wearing this when I first saw you,” said Peter, feeling terribly soppy as he said it.

“It is big enough for us both now,” Gideon said, snuggling his spare frame against Peter.

“You haven’t been taking care of yourself,” Peter said, a scolding tone in his voice.

“Ah you prefer me plump and youthful,” Gideon teased. “Do I not look now like a tortured poet from one of your books?”

“I prefer you well, whatever shape or size you are,” Peter said.

“My dearest Peter. My English nanny,” Gideon said, chuckling. “I will be very well, I promise you. Now a demon is not devouring my soul piece by piece.”

“Well when you put it like that,” Peter said and wrapped the coat around them more tightly.

“You can take me home to London and feed me Mrs Manning’s fine cooking,” Gideon said.

“We’ll stay in by the fire and drink my cellar dry and I shall teach you how to be a young fogey.”

“I shall need some carpet slippers,” Gideon said, nuzzling his head against Peter’s neck. Peter felt almost as though he was holding a large cat in his lap.

“Perhaps Mrs Manning shall work you some.”

“Perhaps,” Gideon chuckled. “It will keep her distracted from wondering about you and I. At least, as I hope for you and I. But you have only yet kissed me once, even though I am lying here trying my best to seduce you, so perhaps I am mistaken.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter said. “I’m not very good at all this. I’m rather…”

“English,” Gideon finished for him. “And rather wonderful.”

Peter turned to face Gideon and saw his dark eyes glittering in what was left of the firelight. Gideon moved forward, pressing his lips gently to Peter’s, slowly, almost lazily. Peter was just adjusting to the sensation of this when Gideon tilted his head a fraction, changing the angle and opening his mouth. Peter let him tease his own mouth open, letting out a surprised gasp when he felt the flicker of Gideon’s tongue.

“Peter?” Gideon asked, pausing. Peter didn’t answer with words, didn’t want to break the spell with clumsy English phrases. Instead he cupped the back of Gideon’s head, opening his mouth against his. Gideon’s breath came faster and Peter reached out blindly, finding his waist and jerking him closer.

“Show me,” Peter breathed. “Show me what to do, Gideon. I haven’t the least idea.”

Gideon let out a small moan of excitement and slid a hand between Peter’s legs. Peter jerked as though he’d been electrified. To be touched, there! And not just touched, for Gideon was stroking him, and rubbing himself against Peter’s thigh, all the while kissing, and kissing and kissing him. The fire died a little more and darkness wrapped around them, a comfort suddenly, rather than a threat. Peter let himself fall backwards, pulling Gideon on top of him. He cupped Gideon’s arse and Gideon gave a beautiful little gasp and wriggled himself so that their hard cocks were aligned. And then they were thrusting against each other, each movement a spike of pure pleasure through Peter’s body. He hadn’t known...hadn’t any idea that it would be like this. He trembled with the effort of holding himself back, unsure what Gideon would want.

“Harder, Peter,” Gideon moaned, and Peter arched up against him.Close to the brink he stopped himself, biting down on the moans which kept escaping him though it almost killed him to do so.

“Let go,” Gideon was murmuring, shoving Peter’s shirt up and running his hands under it. “Just let go my dear. Let me feel you.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Peter said. He couldn’t he let himself do something so intimate in front of another. This man he had yearned for. This was something he’d only done alone and ashamed. Gideon couldn’t want to see him like that.

“ _Peter_ ,” Gideon said, in his sweet, husky voice. He bit down on Peter’s bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth, and at the same time slid his hand into the waistband of Peter’s trousers, his fingers wrapping around the head of his cock. Peter bucked up once, entirely involuntarily, and spilled violently over Gideon’s hand.

“Ohhh,” he said. “Oh _Christ_.”

Far from being disgusted, this only seemed to excite Gideon, who moaned against his mouth as Peter shuddered through his climax, and sucked kisses all down Peter’s neck. He felt Gideon pull back from him for a moment, but it was only to unfasten his own clothes and then he was back against Peter; mouth, hands, body. Peter felt the silky hardness of Gideon’s cock against his stomach, and refusing to let himself think, he reached for it. Gideon gave a wild jerk and groaned in pleasure. Peter gripped it and began to stroke.

“Harder, Oh, harder, please, please,” Gideon was gasping. He couldn’t seem to stop talking. “Oh Peter those noises. I imagined how you would look when you came, but I never thought how you would sound…God. Fuck, fuck, like that. Yes, oh…”

Gideon’s cried out as he came, his cock jerking in Peter’s hand, his spend hot on Peter’s chest. It felt filthy and human and wonderful. Gideon collapsed down on top of him, knocking the air out of him and holding him tight.

“Oh, God that was wonderful. I love you. You know that though. Did I say that before? I thought I had but perhaps I hadn’t. I should say it every day.”

Peter only blinked at him, not able to think what to say. Everything felt dreamlike.

A scuttling sound brought him back to himself, and Gideon let out at little yelp as a rat picked its way across the floor. Peter wondered if it had just got its soul back. 

“Good god this place,” Gideon said, shuddering. “A perfect horror story. As soon as we get away from here, you are going to take me home with you. I am heartily sick of France.”

Peter was silent, not quite able to wrap his head around what had just happened. Gideon wanted him; wanted his mouth, his body. _He loved him_. And now he wanted a future with him. It all seemed too sweet. Overwhelmed, he couldn’t find any words.

“Or perhaps,” Gideon said quickly, “I shall leave it to you to decide. I plan to go to London in any case, and in a few weeks...if you wish to see me, you can leave word at my club. I quite understand if you need time...or the idea of a relationship is not very tempting, especially with all that’s gone on...”

“Gideon, stop talking for once in your life,” Peter said, starting to laugh.

“What’s funny?” Gideon asked, a little sulkily.

“You are. God almighty, I just banished a demon for you. Me, an antiquarian bookseller, walked up to a demon and chopped its damned head off because it was going to eat your soul. And you wonder if maybe I might want to see you in a few weeks, perhaps, if I have the time? I thought the fact I’m so madly in love with you I’d kill anything that hurts you would be obvious, but apparently not.”

Gideon looked at him for a moment, his eyes widening, before giving a snort of laughter. “Good point. And I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Have you always been this reckless? I’m finding it a little worrying.”

“Do shut up,” Peter said, and then did it for him with a kiss.

“As for coming home with me, I would like nothing better,” he said after a few long moments. “Though in London we may have to be a little more discreet than you’d like.”

Gideon scoffed. “I have enough money to buy us discretion,” he said. “But, my dear Peter - you’re sure?”

“I am,” Peter said.

“Good,” Gideon said, delightedly, the tension going out of him. “Well then, this is wonderful. I can stop buying libraries for you to sort.”

“What do you mean?” asked Peter.

“Do you think I truly had an Aunt who never read a day in her life yet had a collection of twelve hundred books? A terrible lie I’m afraid. I bought those books at an auction two weeks before you arrived in France that first time.”

Peter was almost speechless. “But Gideon, why on _earth_?”

“So I could have you,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “And look! It worked.”

“Good God,” said Peter to himself wonderingly. But before he could begin to gather his thoughts, he was being kissed again, and before long he could not think at all.

 

**Xxxx**

  
**London - 4 days later**

“Mr Letting, sir!” said Mrs Manning happily, throwing open the front door. “You’ve returned. And you too, your honour,” she said to Gideon, clearly unsure how to address a Marquis.

“Yes, here we are,” said Peter, fresh out of a carriage where Gideon had been kissing him almost senseless. He hoped it didn’t show in anything but his smile. “A little earlier than expected, but the Chateau was really uninhabitable.”

“You both look peaky,” Mrs Manning said. “You want a proper dinner inside you.”

“My dear Mrs Manning, I am very much looking forward to partaking of your wonderful cooking,” Gideon said. She smiled at him and turned back to Peter.

“Sir, I put all the mirrors in the sitting room as you instructed.”

Peter thanked her. Gideon had made him send word ahead to arrange this, though Peter hadn’t been sure there was any need for such urgency. Then Gideon had confessed the entire truth which he had held back before - his letters, his love, the visions, the threats even here in London.

Peter had sent the telegram to London instantly.

“In here?” said Gideon, swinging his gold-topped cane between his fingers.

“Yes sir.”

Gideon disappeared through the doorway, and for a few moments nothing could be heard but the sound of shattering glass.

Peter and Mrs Manning hurried into the room to find Gideon surrounded by the remains of Peter’s entire collection of mirrors.

“My dear Mrs Manning,” Gideon said, eyes wide with innocence. “I appear to have had an accident.”

Mrs Manning opened her mouth and then closed it again.

“I do apologise for the extra work Gideon has given you,” Peter said, glaring at Gideon, who had the nerve to look smug.

“Not to worry, Mr Letting,” she said. “I can clear this up in a jiffy.”

“You will do no such thing; we shall sweep it up ourselves,” Peter said, moving slightly to block Mrs Manning’s view of Gideon, who was balancing on the fender, trying to snatch Peter’s grimoires from their shelf. “Won’t we, Gideon?”

“Are these all of them Peter?” Gideon said, not listening.

Mrs Manning tried to peer around Peter but he moved again and she gave up. Peter heard a series of thumps behind him followed by a stream of rather colourful words, thankfully in French.

“There’s a fire in here and in both the bedrooms, and I shall bring your supper up when you…”

Mrs Manning’s eyes widened, and Peter turned to see Gideon throw the first of the grimoires to the back of the fire. The fireplace lit up with strange blue flames.

“Wonderful, thank you,” Peter said heartily, hustling Mrs Manning from the room. “I believe we shall want to eat straight away.”

“Good God Gideon,” Peter said when they were alone again. “Couldn’t it have waited five minutes? Goodness knows what Mrs Manning thinks we’re up to.”

“No time to lose, my dear Peter,” Gideon said, throwing him a book. “Here. I don’t want you to miss out on all the fun.”

Peter shook his head at him. Then he steeled himself, and fighting every instinct he had, threw the book deep into the fire.

 

**Xxxxx**

**Two months later**

  
**The Albany, London**

Peter let his head drop back against the back of the chaise with a groan and closed his eyes in pleasure. Gideon collapsed across him a moment later with a cry. Peter stroked Gideon’s silky hair as their breathing calmed and Gideon made a contented little sound and nuzzled into Peter’s neck.

Presently Peter would find his handkerchief and clean them both up. But for now he relished the sheer animal warmth of Gideon’s skin against his, and his spend drying on their bellies.

The fire popped and crackled. Peter knew that he could reach out a hand and run it down the contours of Gideon’s back, or stretch over to pick up the very fine glass of claret he had been drinking, or lift the fascinating book he had been reading. All three of these possibilities made him inordinately happy.

“We should dress I suppose. We have a table at Simpsons later,” Gideon said with a sigh, squirming a little against Peter. A little more of that, Peter thought, and they’d be off again. He gave Gideon a lingering kiss.

“Let’s not,” he said lazily. “Let’s just stay here and eat on the terrace.”

“We haven’t been out anywhere in a fortnight Peter,” Gideon said, laughing. He sat up and swung his feet to the floor.

Peter watched him cross the room, a confection of smooth olive skin and tumbled dark curls, and wondered at the extraordinary turn his life had taken. That he could possibly be the lover of a Marquis. A Marquis who had just been arching against him, begging for his cock, then gasping and moaning with abandon when he’d got it. It was too ludicrous.

“I am going to make you a cocktail,” Gideon was saying, wrapping a silk dressing gown around himself. He busied himself at the drinks cabinet - Peter had never seen such an ostentatious thing until Gideon had begun to furnish his flat - hands deftly moving between bottles and glittering crystal glasses.

Peter stretched out on the chaise; another thing he wouldn’t have dreamt of having in his life were it not for Gideon. “But where then shall you fuck me?” Gideon had whispered when Peter had taken him aside in Selfridges and protested the extravagance. And Peter had told him exactly where he would fuck him, and it didn’t involve a single bit of dainty, unnecessary furniture. Gideon, eyes dark with promise, had turned back to the salesman and painstakingly completed the purchase, taking what felt like several eons to write out his cheque, before they had somehow got back into Gideon’s carriage. There they had lunged at each other, ripping at shirts and buttons, lips hot on each other’s skin. Gideon had come just from Peter’s mouth on his nipple and his knee between his legs, making the most delicious noises.

And my God, the fucking was achingly good.

But it was more than that. Gideon was not merely a lover (and to think Peter Letting, confirmed bachelor and antiquarian bookseller should have a lover at all!), but his heart. Peter loved him, quite simply.

(Gideon of course claimed he had loved Peter since their eyes met across the auction room at Sotheby's, but Gideon could be so terribly...French.)

Discretion had dictated that Peter keep his own house in Smith Street while Gideon had taken a flat here at the Albany, because where else would a Marquis reside but at London's most exclusive, yet private, address? Mrs Manning made no comment on Peter’s absences, helped no doubt by the generous salary Peter was now in a position to give her for Gideon was as generous and open-handed with his wealth as ever.

Peter attempted to rein him in occasionally, because really, the man let money run through his fingers like sand. But it was perhaps unnecessary, given the wealth he had inherited from his Uncle. Many small luxuries had crept into Peter's world as his and Gideon's lives had become more entwined, and Peter found it very hard to try to resist them.

"You need a shave my dear," Gideon said, handing him his drink and sitting down next to him again.

"Well you shall have to do it. How am I to do it myself when you won't let me own as much as a shaving glass? Perhaps I should grow whiskers."

"You should use my barber Peter, he is only just across the street," Gideon said, although they had had this discussion a thousand times.

"A wet shave at the barber daily? Pointless extravagance," Peter said as he always did.

"Oh very well," Gideon said, sighing. "I shall attend to you, or the clientele at Simpsons shall think you a perfect ruffian."

In truth, they both adored the intimate ritual. Gideon would make a tremendous fuss, sharpening the blade on his razor strap, selecting which soap to use ('sandalwood suits you best my dear'), and delicately shaving Peter's face inch by inch, stopping to kiss each patch of skin as he uncovered it. Peter would not dream of foregoing the experience, however efficient Gideon's barber was.

“I am thinking of throwing a party,” Gideon said, once Peter was half-way down his drink and a little more pliant.

Peter groaned. “Surely I needn’t be there? How would you explain me?”

“Of course you shall be there as my good friend, and it’ll drum up endless business for you. All these dissipated aristocrats are so neglectful of their libraries you know. Who knows what treasures lie decaying in their country piles.” Gideon’s eyes sparked at him mischievously.

“You know I find parties unbearable,” Peter said.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to a proper one,” Gideon said. “Have you my dear?”

“Well…” he hadn’t of course.

“I do know you need your solitude my love,” Gideon said seriously, stroking a warm hand down Peter’s chest. “And as you know, I am perfectly happy most of the time to racket around London with others while you enjoy your fireside and your books. But it would mean the world, this once, to have you there with me.”

“But these will all be important guests. Lords and Ladies and so on,” Peter said, though he was weakening.

“But you are very important. You love me - who else in the world does that? There is no one more important than you.”

“Oh,” said Peter, as disarmed by Gideon’s charm as he ever had been. “Oh very well. You really are a terror you know.”

“It will only be one time. Once. A year. And,” Gideon said quickly as Peter opened his mouth to protest, “I will be so very grateful. You have no idea how grateful I can be.” He smiled widely as he wrapped his arms around Peter’s waist, the silk of his dressing gown slipping against Peter’s bare skin enticingly.

“Hmmm,” said Peter, dropping a kiss onto Gideon’s shoulder as the gown slipped away. "You're quite right. How about you show me."

"Oh Peter, I think I am about to earn myself ten years of your attendence at my parties," Gideon said with a wicked smile. And shortly afterwards, Peter could only agree.


End file.
